Memoirs of Motherhood, Mental Health, and the Magic in the Mess. ♡
I’m feeling this profoundly hard today, and I am making this public so I don’t have to answer (as many) questions later:
My broken, bruised and harmful relationship with my mother has reached beyond its inevitable breaking point, and I am finally having the courage to cut ties and walk away.
And, in time, hopefully heal…
Shout out to the biggest thing that is keeping me sane during this period of pandemic isolation: daily, morning walks with my kid.
They’re long, meandering, and not always with rhyme and reason (as I am often subject to a four year old’s whims), but they are making this experience survivable and pleasant.
Now, if someone could please help my kid realize that paths with pebbles are all good to walk on, and not the devil itself, I’d love you for life.
I’ve said this and I’ll say it again, I did not expect the mind fuck of parenting that is worrying about your kid(s).
It’s like this gigantic, all encompassing, slightly obnoxious layer to add to the stress vortext that is life.
You can have this part of the job back, Parenting, my brain hurts
Postpartum OCD entered my parenting journey at six months in.
It took me doing a lot of thorough and careful research after a counsellor, someone not at liberty to diagnose, made an offhand comment while recommending I see a psychiatrist during my postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression battles.
Despite it having been years since, I have never spoken publicly about this.
I can count on less than one hand the people I have privately told that I have about my postpartum OCD, internal thoughts and actions.
Many of my closest family members do not know.
If I had previously shared my struggles with you about my supposed postpartum anxiety or depression, I purposely did not correct myself.
And typing this right now?
It’s terrifying.
There will forever be a piece of me that believes speaking this truth to power will result in my child being taken away from me.
Even in this very post of me admitting to it, it will glaze over the details of *how* and in what ways I suffer from postpartum OCD. The fear of repercussions — it is strong and deeply, deeply real.
One truth I am not afraid to glaze over is this: there are few things in the world that make you feel more like a terrible person and a terrible mother than postpartum OCD. (Yes, I am far past postpartum now, but I still have the same symptoms — though not as often, so I struggle with what else to call it). The guilt that comes with this disorder is a heavy, heavy load to bear. It hurts in ways I didn’t know one could feel pain, and it can be a gut punch from nowhere that can derail a whole day.
But, I have learned to reframe it. I have learned to positively see the whys. I have learned to function.
Others haven’t. Postpartum OCD is not something widely understood, or rarely talked about. Predominantly from the very people who need help the most, those who are suffering in silence and with my same fears.
If I am ever to truly heal, my truth must be heard.
And if you’ve ever been here, or are here, you are not alone. I hear you. I am you. This will not defeat us.
I’m trying to make sense of who I am as a mom. Still.
I don’t really know what this making sense looks like, tastes like, or feels like to wear against the skin of my arms, but I keep trying to reach forward into the realm of mom identities and find something to latch onto.
I’m not the crunchy mom. Not the boss mom. Not the Pinterest/crafty mom. Not the helicopter mom. Not the wine mom. Not the perfect mom. Definitely not the cool mom.
There is nothing wrong with any of these moms, I’m just not them.
In this attempting to make sense of my mom identity, I’m doing something I try hard to not do to anyone else. I’m labeling myself, and admittedly masking it as attempt to try to figure out where I fit. I’m taking a square and pushing it into the round hole of mom identities, and expecting to meet my deliverance.
These walls are too thick.
I guess I could be a wannabe minimalist mom. An RIE mom (on my good days). An obviously plus sized mom. A boring/little too honest mom. Kinda the hot mess mom. A “reads too much and really loves sleep and chocolate” mom.
Or, in any case, the sum of those moms.
But what lies in the lingering and claiming/writing/marinating of such mom identity(s)? Is there sense to uncover? Ease to be found? Will I be less of a foggy mess and more (wiggles fingers *magically*) “with purpose”?
Side note: will blogging in this bloody thing become not be such a forgetful, directionless conquest?
Or in claiming something, anything, on this mothering journey, and trying to fit into it — will it only further lead to my own bewildered, dazzling confusion?
Perhaps this making sense… it is more than a label. More than a type. More than a niche.
Perhaps it is simply settling on where I find myself smiling in this mothering journey, and letting that be the sense and the identity that I need.
I don’t know. But I’m fumbling. It is a peaceful, awkward tumble. I’m reaching towards and casting away. Eventually, I’ll land.